Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – May 9, 2020

May 9th, 2020

Yuri Events

Join us all today on the Okazu Discord for our lowest-key Yuri event ever. There is no agenda, so come by, relax, have some tea and snacks with like-minded folks on the Okazu Discord Yuri Tea Party! ^_^

Please mark your calendar for May 31, and join us on Youtube for an Online Yuri Panel! I will be sending out a link when we are sorted.  The Panel will be free to anyone. If you support Okazu on Patreon for as little as $5/month, you’ll get backstage access! We could really use a few new patrons, too. We’re hovering at just around $500 , I’d like us to be able to move past that sustainably and start investing in Yuri creators again. ^_^

I’ll be joining a couple of podcasts in days ahead, so keep you ears peeled for those, too!

 

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Yuri Anime

Adachi to Shimamura anime will have a October premier date and has a second trailer on Youtube. It looks just as exciting as I remember it being with extra slo-mo on the already-slow scenes of them doing nothing. Honestly, I remember the whole book being slo-mo.

Mamoru Oshii’s VladLove anime has been delayed due to COVID-19, according to Jennifer Sherman at ANN.

 

Yuri Doujinshi

Irodori Sakura has announced their first set of translated doujinshi which, they say, will include 3 safe for work and 1 NSFW titles. Momoko Wants To Do What? by Ichinorai is the one they are working on now.

 

Yuri Manga

Yuri Mother has collected together suggestions from a ton of folks who discuss Yuri manga with The Ultimate Quarantine Yuri Reading List! Take a look for some ideas. ^_^

Yen Press‘ Éclair Blanche is now available, featuring works by Kiss and White Lily creator Canno and Bloom Into You‘s Nakatani Nio. Check out my review from last month – this is a pretty solid anthology and a good read.

Also from Yen Press, Volume 14 of MURCIÉLAGO.

Out this week is Bloom Into You, Volume 7; as Yuu and Touko struggle to figure out what they mean to each other, Sayaka confronts her final inner boss.

 

Yuri Voice Drama

Galette announces a new Voice Drama story, Ippen Arumi’s Shinda Onna no Hanashi (死んだ女の話). The first part is up on Galette online!

 

Other News

Via YNN Correspondent Vialla, renaissance woman Sandy Toksvig has taken to doing videos from her home and in one of her recent videos, she discusses Japanese suffrage and Kimura Komako, a Japanese woman who came the the United States in 1915 to be part of the Women’s Suffrage March in NYC. Here is a photo of Kimura-san from the archives of the Japan Society in NYC. So, if a shouty primate tells you that feminism in Japan is modern or a Western import, share this name and information with them. ^_^

The British Film Institute is celebrating 100 years of Japanese cinema with months of Japanese films streaming on their BFI player. They’ll be releasing some of these for free, so take a look at the schedule and catch up on Japanese cinema classics.

Senior YNN Correspondent Sean G reports on Megan’s thread on Twitter of their translation of an “interesting interview with Japanese openly gay LGBT+ rights campaigners Nanasaki Ryousuke, Mizonoguchi [sic] Akiko, Matsuoka Munetsugu, about the evolution of BL and whether queer media should be realistic.” 

ATo wrap up, the Japan Foundation has shared this memory from a year ago, when we kicked off the 100 Years of Yuri celebration with an interview of Kase-san creator Hiromi Takashima as part of TCAF!

 

Become a YNN Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news with your name and an email I can reply to – thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network! Special thanks to Okazu Patrons for being an essential part of the team!

Posted in Yuri Network News | 7 Comments »


The Half of It on Netflix

May 8th, 2020

Do you remember when a while ago when there was a spate of classic literature as updated movies? Jane Austen’s Emma became Clueless, Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew became Ten Things I Hate About You. It’s not a new idea, but it’s always fun when a director you like takes a look at a stodgy old classic and manages to do it one better.

In the Half of It, Alice Wu takes on Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac and does it more than one better. 

You may remember Alice Wu – she was the driving force behind Saving Face, which I found to be utterly delightful when I attended the premier in 2005. Folks were pretty happy to hear that she’d be behind this teen lesbian drama. Having watched it, I can recommend it highly.

As you may remember from Cyrano de Bergerac, the plot revolves around a beautiful girl, Aster, the big incoherent galumph who loves her, Paul, who hires Cyrano to write wooing words for him. In this case, Cyrano is played by Ellie Chu, a world-weary high school girl who makes money by writing other student’s papers and who avoids other people…but is also attracted to Aster.

In this version of the story, Aster is smart and sensitive and so is Ellie, while Paul really tries and it becomes almost impossible to dislike him.  The core of the story is the nature of love and, while I think they all get it completely wrong, it did remind me of something. In Volume 2 of Bloom Into You Regarding Saeki Sayaka, Sayaka spends a lot of time thinking about the components of attraction. Why does someone confess feelings to another, what are those feeling composed of? There is a similar train of thought here – what makes us “fall in love” or even be attracted to another person? Sayaka comes to an obvious conclusion – that for most people, looks are the way they judge other people’s worth. When we’re young, this is especially sensible as we don’t have a lot of other factors we can use. We don’t know who we are, how can we really understand someone else. When Sayaka is thinking about how sempai liked her because she was pretty, it was a clue to her superficiality that Sayaka ultimately understood.

For Ellie, the story is not a romance, but it is a journey of self-discovery. There is a key scene where she and Paul are practicing his conversational skills. Ellie says, “I don’t need speaking practice,” but as we watch them converse it is apparent that yes, yes she did. Maybe not so she had words, which is Paul’s need, but so that she learns how to be a better human by caring about other humans. She does learn.  By the end of the story, all of the principals have changed for the better and while no one ends up with anyone else, we can hope they will all live happily ever after in lives that are richer for having known and cared about each other.

Racism is mentioned but never becomes a specific issue, but there are enough cues that its not truly subtext, either. The systemic oppression of religious community is also constant background refrain. These are the ever-present cosmic microwave background of this story, an ever-present relic of societal pressure.

The acting was superlative. The story was tight. This was a decent watch and I’ll look forward to more from Alice Wu.

Ratings:

Cinematography – 8 Very good until the end where it soared into sublime
Acting – 9
Story – 9 Great reworking of a brilliant, but deeply annoying classic
Lesbian – 6 Ellie’s journey is painful, but not excruciating.
Service – None

Overall – 9

Like I Am Not Okay With This, the story plumbs the depths of the torture of high school, with less blood.

Posted in Live Action | 3 Comments »


SQ Kimi no Namae kara Hajimaru (SQ 君の名前から始まる)

May 6th, 2020

SQ: Begin With Your Name by Tanjiu is an absolutely delightful webcomic that runs on Chinese social platform Weibo. I’d heard about it some some time ago but, to be honest, I can barely keep up with printed Yuri these days so, aside from a very few webcomics, I just can’t find the time to add new ones into my rotation too often. I let webcomics build up and read them in chunks every few months (…or years…or when I remember .) I wanted to read SQ and when Comic Walker picked it up I was delighted to get a chance to read some of it. Even better, Kadokawa has collected all of Volume 1 up into a Japanese release, SQ Kimi no Namae kara Hajimaru (SQ 君の名前から始まる). You can also get this release digitally on Global Bookwalker.

SQ follows Sun Jing, her best friend Qi Fang, and the girl Sun Jing falls for, Qiu Tong, in one of the most wholly relatable, dorakriffically wonderful school life dramas I’ve read in a while.

Sun Jing is awkward in a normal kid kind of way, She and Qi Fang frequently play pranks on one another, he busts her, she busts him; they are cheerfully obnoxious to one another in the way that good friends are. Qiu Tong, who goes to another school, is popular and cute and Sun Jing falls, hard. And then, they just start becoming friends and hanging and Sun Jin makes a fool of herself and sometimes pulls it together long enough to be cool. But when she asks Qiu Tong for her phone number and gets it and celebrates with loud “Yahoo!” my heart just swelled, much like the clerk at the combini in a later chapter watching the two of them being just…cute…together.

Sun Jing and Qiu Tong aren’t the only people in this book, they aren’t even the only couple. They are surrounded by classmates and teammates and schoolmates, all of whom are exactly as I remember – jokingly beating on each other emotionally and physically because that’s how young humans are in packs. But in the background there is a very cute little gay love story, as well. One of the guys in school has a crush on his sempai. He’s a big guy, but sempai is HUGE. We see his massive arm, protectively over his kouhai’s shoulder. Again, just heartwarming as heck. The book ends with sempai taking on a couple of bullies from another school. What will happen has to wait for Volume 2. (Yes, I know it has already been online, I’ve read ahead -its just so cute!- I’m reviewing the collected volume. ^_^)

I also know there’s some controversy about a second volume of this comic, as the Chinese government has apparently cracked down on it for having a same-sex kiss in later chapters. I doubt that will affect a Japanese, volume 2 so I’ll hope to see one. In any case, that chapter is still up on Weibo, and Tanjiu is still posting comics on his Twitter account so there’s been no shutdown.

I genuinely hope to see this title make it over here. It’s really delightful and, as the comics often pass by with very little dialogue many are completely silent, it doesn’t matter what language it’s in. For instance, here is the April 12th comic, which is completely pantomime. The art is simple, the expressions and body language are doing the heavy lifting. We all can relate to Sun Jing’s feelings.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 8 straightforward and simple, but solid
Characters – 10
Service – None. Not a salacious thing in the entire book
Yuri – 9

Overall – 9

It’s just really fun to read. ^_^

Interestingly, this was one of two things from China that I’m reading in Japanese. The other one is a mystery novel which I am reading very, very slowly. I expect to be able to review it in autumn. It’s good, I just can’t read more than a page or two at a time. ^_^;

Posted in Yuri Manga | 7 Comments »


Sailor Moon Stars Limited Edition, Part 2, Disk 2

May 5th, 2020

Sailor Moon Stars Limited Edition, Part 2, Disk 2 has some good and some bad…and some annoying, upsetting, frustrating, bittersweet, sweet and a host of other feelings. It’s like an M&M bag full of feels.

Sailor Lead Crow realizes that the absence of her “rival” is a hole she may never fill. The Three Lights learn that being hard-asses doesn’t really pay off. The Outers don’t learn a damn thing and the Inners learn that Usagi has been lying by omission. Both Seiya and Usagi learn that Seiya’s feelings are very sincere and everyone learns that Kakyuuu-Hime was hanging out in an incense burner watching them. That’s not weird at all.

We all learn the high stakes of Galaxia’s attacks. Are we worried? Not really because even aside from this being 23 years old, we know Sailor Moon will win the day. Which is why her emotional is torment especially upsetting, because why?!? What benefit is there to do this to the audience?

On the positive side, we spend some time with each Inner Senshi for the first time in a while. Minako, particularly, has a moment to shine bright, as we might expect from Venus.

I have to eat my words and say that while Seiya had stopped jokingly hitting on Usagi, he (for I will continue to refer to Kou Seiya as a “he,” as Seiya’s actions and behavior still read masculine identifying to me, while Taiki I think would just have been better off not having to pretend to be a hard ass guy, and Yaten remains Yaten) has terrible timing. I sympathize with Seiya, but no, you cannot be enough when she doesn’t even know whether or not she should be sad or angry. So, yes, I acknowledge that Seiya might have, in an entirely alternative timeline, been a decent choice, but he loses all the points for poor timing and inappropriateness.

The art has pulled itself up a tad, too, as if everyone knew they were coming down to the wire.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 8
LGBTQ – 4 Michiru wants you to know that she and Haruka are very gay. They have one scene, and its gay.
Service – 1 Seiya shirtless, I guess, works for some people

…and here we are. It’s down to 6 more episodes, 4 of which will be everyone dying. Whee! Grab the hankies, we’re going in…

Route Venus is one of my favorite of the Senshi image songs. Here’s Fukami Rika not murdering it for plot purposes.

Posted in English Anime, Sailor Moon | 1 Comment »


Yuri Network News – (百合ネットワークニュース) – May 2, 2020

May 2nd, 2020

Loads of Yuri news this week!

Yuri Manga

Starting with the new license I accidentally skipped last week, woops, thanks for the reminder, Megan. ^_^

Seven Seas licensed Even Though We’re Adults, by Takako Shimura. This is a story about a married woman and the woman she meets and sleeps with. Tthe Japanese edition, Otona ni Nattemo, Volume 1 (おとなになっても) is on the Yuricon Store, but Volume 2 is no longer available in print. It is available in digital format on Global Bookwalker. I just finished the first volume, so expect a review shortly!

Bloom Into You, Volume 7 now out from Seven Seas and there’s only one volume left in the series. Volume 8 will probably be out late this year.

Seven Seas has also just released Nameless Asterism, Volume 5. This pleasant school life story touches on BL and Yuri, as well.

Via her Twitter account, Ohsawa Yayoi has released the first few chapters of 2DDK, GPen, Mezamashitokei (2DK、Gペン、目覚まし時計。) on Piccoma for free in Japanese.

We have a bunch of titles up on the Yuricon Store including FLOWERCHILD’s Warikitta Kankei Desukara., Volume 2 (割り切った関係ですから。)

And super-happy news for me is that Takemiya Jin’s Fujyourina Atashi-tachi, Volume 2 (不条理なあたし達) is out this week in Japan. It’s a sequel I never even expected! I described this in my review of Volume 1 as “a story about two crappy people who end up with a happy ending that they actually deserve.” ^_^

Hakamada Mera’ Aikata System ~ Gakuen ga Eranda Unmei no Onna no ko~ , Volume 2  (相方システム~学園が選んだ運命の女の子~) is up on the Store. I just started Volume 1 last night. I’ll get back to you on it.

 

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A couple of titles popped up recently that I hadn’t heard about (or hadn’t been Yuri) until the last volume. If anyone out there has read either of these, let me know if they were of interest? Via Comic Natalie,Wakusei Closet, Volume 4 (惑星クローゼット) is a science fiction horror, which appears to have a Yuri ending.

Also via Comic Natalie, the 11th and final volume of Jousei series Nigeru wa Hajida ga Yakunitatsu (逃げるは恥だが役に立つ) has a Yuri ending. This is sold out in print, but you can still get it digitally on Global Bookwalker.

One more via Comic Natalie, Itazura Privacy (悪戯プライバシー) is about a Yuri relationship between two bullies. Huh, that’s different-ish. You can grab that on Global Bookwalker or in print on Amazon JP.

Lastly, one of the new Comic Yuri Hime manga, Lonely Girl ni Sakaraenai, Volume 1 (ロンリーガールに逆らえない) is just out in Japan, but is out of stock in print, so I’ve added the digital edition on Global Bookwalker to the Yuricon Store. I think this is a pleasant enough story. ^_^

 

Yuri Light Novels

Penguindrum, the Light Novel, will see Volume 1 released at the end of this month, and Volume 2 headed our way, in the autumn via Seven Seas.

Adachi and Shimamura Light Novel , Volume 2 is also slated for a early autumn release. Volume 1 is available now.

Via Yurimother, we have news that the webnovel sequel to Kannazuki no Miko by creative team Kaishaku, Himegami no Miko will be serialized in Dengeki Maou magazine. It wasn’t as much of dumpster fire as Zettai Shoujo Amnesium, but it wasn’t a literary classic, either. ^_^;

 

Yuri Doujinshi

Lilyka has made their doujinshi available on Kindle, so to get you started, I’ve added irua’s The Wanderers and Ruri Hazuki’s Saturday 2-book collection to the Yuricon Store.

Also on the store is Twa’s Between She and Her. Lilyka has an interview with creator Twa on the Lilyka site.

 

LBGTQ Live-Action

Via YNN Correspondent Roxie, Alice Wu’s new queer teen drama The Half of It, has been released on Netflix. You may remember Alice Wu’s work on Saving Face, What interests me most is that the news was released on Netflix Malaysia’s Twitter feed.

Also via Roxie and Netflix, A Secret Love is a biographical story of two women who fell in love when it was not a thing one does, and their relationship over time.

 

Queer Comics

Emma Vieceli and Claudia Leonardi are creating a Life is Strange, Volume 1: DUST, a sequel to the popular game franchise.

 

Other News

Air Comiket, the first-ever online Comike,t launched their new logos this week. I think they are perfectly charming. ^_^

Sotheby’s in Hong Kong has a Manga auction coming up this week with original cels up for bidding. They are expecting a fair amount for some of these.

 

Become a YNN Correspondent by reporting any Yuri-related news with your name and an email I can reply to – thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network! Special thanks to Okazu Patrons for being an essential part of the team!

Posted in Yuri Network News | 13 Comments »